


the holy dark

by hikaie



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Captivity, Choking, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Torture, Major Character Injury, Nightmares, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Touch-Starved, Unhealthy Relationships, the deputy isn't a good person!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2019-10-26 14:25:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17747543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikaie/pseuds/hikaie
Summary: Rook thinks she can get the upper hand in Jacob's training, but she might be out of her depth.





	1. Autumn

**Author's Note:**

> This proooobably won't be very long but... the initial idea got away from me so, in being longer than expected, I decide to post it in multiple parts.

It’s funny; he doesn’t flinch when Pratt touches the blade to his throat, but when the man steadies a hand on his shoulder Jacob tenses up, something going cold and far-away in his gaze. He rattles on past the reaction, and Rook chalks it up to being dehydrated, starved, and stoned off her ass on Bliss. Of course, there is a little part of her, the conditioned response he’s wrung out of her bones: it’s uncurling like a dog by a fire, woken by Jacob’s super-villain monologue. When he starts to get wordy that part of her knows it’s nearly time to _TRAINHUNTKILLSACRIFICE_ and she’s antsy. More importantly she’s alert. She can attribute it to the drugs and malnourishment as much as she wants- he doesn’t like to be touched, and she knows it as sure as she knows her name.

Of course, his brother had held him, had hugged him. He hadn’t been skittish to that. She wonders what it is- blood? Loyalty? It hadn’t been that long that Joseph had touched him… and surely a man that let’s another near his throat with a straight razor can’t be that hard pressed about touch, can he? He doesn’t punish Pratt for the touch, either- he keeps it to himself.

He works through it.

She’s laughing to herself and he looks mildly interested, slightly annoyed she’s interrupted him. “Something you want to share with the class?”

“Just.” Speaking feels like thousands of needles along her parched throat, and she desperately smacks her lips in vain. “Nothing.” She rasps.

He stops his little speech and tilts his head. Not unlike a dog, but there’s an almost feline quality to it. The predator sizing up the prey, going still and silent to draw back and pounce. His hand sinks into his pocket and he smiles.

Rook’s not laughing anymore. She soon forgets Pratt’s incidental touch.

 

When she crawls out of the truck she stumbles through the dirt and underbrush deliriously. Her radio is crackling but she hardly hears it with the ruckus she’s making crashing through the forest. She trips over something- a root or a rock that goes loose, and she tumbles down a (thankfully) low incline until she slides to a stop in mud. _Mud_. Rook drags herself bodily through the muck until water soothes over her skin, lukewarm and about the best damn thing she’s ever felt. Normally she’d have something to purify the water with, courtesy of Dutch, but she figures she’s already fucked from whatever it was Jacob fed her. She gulps water, nearly drowns herself in the creek the way she’s laying in it and slurping like a dog. It catches up to her quickly and she sits up with great effort, vomiting on the drying creek bed. She’s almost grateful for the pinkness of it, for the partially-digested raw meat easing the burn of the bile. Now she drinks slower, raising cupped-handfuls of water to her mouth.

“Kid?” Rook exhales and frees her radio from her pants. It’s covered in mud and dried blood.

“’Sup.” She slurs.

“You don’t sound too good. …Where you been? Over.”

“Complicated.” Her voice sounds like a blender. “Over.”

“Uh huh.” There’s a brief burp of static, and Rook watches the water ripple around her outstretched legs. “Where are you? Over.”

“Whitetails.” She looks around, then up at the sky where a late autumn sun is winking at her through the leaves. “North- uhhh. North by northwest.” Her last map was lost in the frantic chase she’d led Jacob’s capture party in. The light of the day is dying, and normally she’s not one to accept handouts, but it’s getting colder and the weakness is catching up with her again. “Dutch, I don’t have a fuckin’ clue, over.” Even if she did, there’s a Peggy on one side of her, unknown forest on all others, and she’s too weak to hold her own weight up long enough to find her way out. _Should’ve stayed in the truck_.

There comes a long stretch of silence. It fills in with the sounds of the forest- the flutter of wings, the creak of shifting branches, and the soft bubble of water somewhere close by. Were it not for the truck she’s sure can’t be more than a half-mile away off some desolate back road, she could almost believe she wasn’t in Hope County; that she was somewhere untouched by the madness her life has become.

“Can you start a fire? Over.”

Leave it to Eli to not have this particular nook of the woods monitored. Rook looks doubtfully over her shoulder, but taps her pants. The deep, open pocket on her left side contains a crumpled five dollar bill and a fishing fly. Her side pocket betrays a damp package of waterproof matches and a handful of 9mm ammo. Matches the sidearm she’d pilfered from the compound.

“Yeah. Over.”

“Someone’ll be there for you shortly. Dutch over and out.”

It’s not long after she’s started the thick, smoking fire that the Peggy who’d been driving the truck comes to investigate. She’s got no strength left, and even if she did she’s not as forgiving these days. It takes two shots because her arm isn’t steady enough for the first. Rook squeezes her eyes shut and hisses out a breath when he screams like an animal. He is, _he is_ , that’s what she tells herself as she lets off the next round and his body falls to the ground: his last sound, leaving her to the crackling of the fire.

Carefully, she clicks the safety back on. She presses her back up against a tree and focuses on not falling asleep. She’s betting against herself: she can’t bear to keep her eyes open and look at the corpse, and her body is calling for rest. The fire makes her eyes water when she forces them open. Night is approaching faster yet, the forest floor no longer dappled with dying light. Close by, a branch breaks. Now she’s wide awake and the safety goes off with less care than going on.

“Rook?”

“Fuck’s sake, you scared me.”

Jess approaches from the opposite side of the fire from the body, then whistles. “Shit, Dep. Don’t look like you need my help.” Then she actually _looks_ at Rook and flinches. It makes Rook’s stomach swoop. Jess has seen shit- Jess has seen shit that even Rook has a difficult time holding a candle to. To make her flinch with her appearance alone has adrenaline singing through Rook’s veins.

“You wanna put that away?” Now her voice is soft, and that makes Rook _really_ afraid.

“Do I have a tattoo that says ‘PROPERTY OF JACOB SEED’ on my forehead or something?” Here is the only evidence Rook has to her current state: the words come out like she smokes a carton a day. Obediently, she lowers the gun.

“…Might as well.” Jess nudges the body face-down gently with her boot, then loots quickly. She kicks dirt over the fire and finally crosses over to Rook and crouches down. Her face is a welcome sight, the familiarity of it easing Rook’s worries. She’s looking glum and focused now. One of her hands reaches out to touch, but she pulls back at the last second.

“M’okay.”

“Should get you to the jail.”

“That’s all the way in the Henbane.” With Jess’ assistance, Rook stands. Her knees protest, her head begins to pound, and tears spring to her eyes. “Can’t be that bad, can it?”

“You were about 20 pounds heavier when I last saw you. Mind you, that was only three weeks ago.”

They’ve begun the long limp up the hill, so Rook doesn’t have the energy to make a joke about having needed to lose weight. She could feel her own ribs, earlier, arms resting against her torso waiting for help to come. She’s fully aware she lost more than she, or any healthy person, could afford to lose. When they crest the hill Jess let’s her rest and she laughs wryly. “Kinda wish he’d just kill me and get it over with.”

Silence is her only response and Rook looks up at Jess. The other woman is frowning and has a hand in the middle of Rook’s back. Rook looks back down at her feet and focuses on catching her breath. “Sorry. Know the resistance needs me.”

“Hmh.” Jess huffs out a noncommittal noise and they lapse back into silence as they pick their way through the steadily-darkening woods. They have to stop often so that Rook can rest, breathing hard and accepting small sips of water from Jess’ canteen. When the trees begin to thin Jess is practically carrying Rook. Her calves feel like the muscles have completely liquefied, but she’s trudging on one faltering step at a time.

A truck idles at the edge of a crumbling asphalt parking lot. Vaguely, Rook remembers Jess talking on the radio about a mile back. “Hay there Dep!”

“Tone it the fuck down, Hurk.”

“ _Sorr-ee_ , Jess.” Hurk affects a loud whisper, and leaves his door hanging open as he rounds the truck to help her get Rook into the passenger seat. He’s wearing the most ridiculous set of cheetah-print sleep pants. The cab of the truck smells, very faintly, of weed.

“Don’t.” Rook waves his hands away when he leans in to buckle her in. He shrugs and closes the door, and Rook hears Jess clambers into the bed of the pick-up. Hurk has the radio tuned to Wheaty’s classics, and he turns down the volume per Jess’ request when they pull out of the parking lot. Somewhere in the long, lonely curves of the Whitetail Mountains, Rook falls asleep.

 

“Ain’t gonna tell us what you get up to up there, are you?” Sharky lays down three Kings and Rook narrows her eyes.

“Doesn’t matter. How long have you had that King of Hearts?”

“Long enough.” He shrugs and grins at her, then scratches his nose slyly. “Sure it matters Po-Po, when the last couple’a times you’ve come down from the mountains you’ve been tore up to shit.”

“No one said war was easy on the body.” She mulls over her hand. She could play her King off his, or wait out the Jack. Sharky is watching her while she looks at her cards, so she raises them until she can’t see his eyes.

“Dunno how the fuck you expect to beat me at cards when you’re so bad at bluffing.”

“Eat a dick.”

“Ooh, talk dirty to me.” Throwing her cards down in frustration, Rook glares at her friend. He has his feet propped up on her bed, and he’s grinning up a storm.

“Aren’t you supposed to be _nice_ to people recovering from injuries?”

“Used up all of my nice today.” He plays the Jack and she tosses her hand in his face.

 

So. Rook doesn’t talk about what happens in the mountains, because she’s not sure anyone would understand. Sure- Tammy would. Tammy _does_. But that’s the last person who’ll want to hear about how Rook gets starved in a cage in between bouts of Jacob making her run murder simulations. When she wakes up in a cold sweat, whimpering nonsense ( _words that sound like ‘cull the herd’, suspiciously_ ), sure, her friends question it. When she eats her food in three bites, when she slips a granola bar into her bra, when she takes to toting around a plastic jug of water: they question it. Rook brushes them off. It can all be attributed to the situation at large, after all. She doesn’t have to explain. She doesn’t _want_ to explain.

She’s eating in Dutch’s bunker, something gamey and crispy that he’d rustled up. It’s getting late in the year for meat like this, and she’s scared that the months to come are going to hurt the resistance irreparably. It’s not unheard of for Montana to get early dumps of snow, which could come any day, and without good hunting options they’ll be fucked fighting the better-supplied cultists. Dutch must notice her silence is loaded, or maybe he’s noticed the way she’s caged one arm around her food and is plowing through the meat and canned beans faster than he can keep them on her plate.

“Y’alright?”

“Thinking.” She grunts, then burps, then feels immediately guilty. Dutch’s bunker is the one place she can always retreat when it gets to be _too much_. She has come to deeply respect and even love her friends, the people who fight with her, but sometimes she gets overwhelmed. Rook wanted a job when she moved here, a job and a new life away from old hurts and drama. A new start. And _boy_ , did she get one. It’s amazing how luxurious a shower and a bed to sleep in can be without wondering who’ll be waking you and what they’ll be asking of you when they do it. Dutch doesn’t ask questions the way other people do. As far as she can tell, he knows she’s getting shit done and doesn’t need him to complicate it. “Sorry. Thanks for breakfast.”

“No problem.” He pushes his own food around and favors his cup of coffee in its stead. “Penny for your thoughts?”

The soft hum of being underground fills the space, along with the whirr and bubble of the fish tank. Idly, Rook wonders whether Dutch has food stocked away for the fish. Probably. He’s prepared for damn near everything. She considers not telling him. _No one will understand_. Not even Dutch. He’d hardly understood when he found her rifling through his vinyl a week ago, making sure. Then again, he’d still promised never to play The Platters, hadn’t he?

“Jacob’s… doing something to me.” He stills in her periphery, and she backpedals. “Psychologically. I don’t know what it is. Or… maybe I do. I don’t know.” Rook presses the heels of her palms into her eyes and shrugs. “He...”

“I’ve heard stories.”

Rook laughs without humor. “From who? Who’s made it outta there that I don’t know?”

“Got ‘em by way of Eli.”

Tammy then. The one or two other militia who’d made it out. She’s met them. They eat like her, too. They don’t sleep around her. She figures that’s fair.

“It just doesn’t… I feel like he’s _playing_ with me. Like… some game.” Now she curls her fingers into fists and rests them on the table, and refuses to look at him. “I don’t know what he’s after.”

“Change the rules. You don’t have to play.” Dutch rumbles out.

Rook’s shoulders sag, defeated, and she quietly says, “I’m not sure I have a choice. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a choice, in any of this.” When she glances back up, Dutch gives her a long, piercing look and doesn’t respond. His quiet weighs on her until she shifts in her seat.

“Stay outta the mountains for a little while.” He says, finally, rising from his seat and breaking eye contact. “…Everyone’s tired of seeing you look like shit.”

Good ol’ Dutch wisdom.

 

It comes to her again in a haze of Bliss. The sky overhead is a cloudless navy blue, the air thin and derisive. No longer are fields of flowers a problem, but not for the first time she’s taken an emergent dip into the Henbane. Cold, cold water stings her skin, and she comes up gasping, vision sparkling.

“Fuck, shit, fuck _fuck_ , might as well kiss my balls goodbye- can you hurry the _fuck_ up?” Sharky is swearing and pushing her shoulders, urging her onto the bank. Across the river Peggies shout, and yellow flashlight beams reflect off the water. Rook stumbles up muddy shore into the trees, and Sharky comes running after her. They’d been surprised by the cultists, had been forced to abandon their camp and supplies in favor of a quick retreat. Most likely their little dip in the water will throw them off, but Rook is focused on getting as far from the river as possible.

After a while she becomes aware she’s following a white mist through the trees. She can’t hear Sharky behind her, anymore. She stops. Her heartbeat pounds in her ears, a rhythmic drumming. Every part of her is cold, and she’s shivering so hard her teeth are clacking together, her jaw clenching tight and painful. Laughter reaches her ears and she closes her eyes.

“Stop. Not right now, Faith.” Another ghostly report of giggles meets her ears.

Leaves crunch behind her and she whirls, but instead of a Bliss hallucination it’s Sharky, grabbing at her shoulders in relief. “You sure sped up. There’s a cabin just over here. No one’s there, we can crash.”

Rook nods and lets Sharky lead her through the trees. He’s better at handling the Bliss than she is; it could have something to do with his ridiculous tolerance to all mind-altering substances, or the fact that he’d lived surrounded by the stuff for over a year. It’s a little scary that he’s the competent one in their operation, while she’s off trailing shadows. Maybe that’s not a fair assessment. Sharky knows how to take care of them. She knows he wouldn’t let her wander off on purpose.

“Thanks.” His voice filters back sarcastically as they break the tree line. _Fuck_. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

He gets a fire started inside, and Rook peels off her wet clothes and throws them over the curtain rod in the little bathroom. She bundles into a dusty smelling sweater from the dresser, and wraps herself in the equally-smelly throw blanket on the couch before sitting herself in front of the fireplace. The heat feels almost painful on her icy nose and feet.

“Why’s your impulse to jump in the fuckin’ water? _Hell_. No sense of self preservation, I swear.” Sharky collapses next to her, equally decked out in stolen clothing and blankets. He curls into a ball against her side and she leans some of her weight into him. The fire is curling in amusing shapes, sparkling at the tips of the flames. Tired, she closes her eyes. Sharky is warm and solid beneath her shoulder, and she moves so that she’s lying on her side curled against his front. He rests a hand companionably on her shoulder. She tries to sneak some of his blanket around her as well but he catches on quickly.

“Tryin’ to put the moves on me, huh? Well, the ol’ Boshaw charm never fails.”

“Shut the fuck up.” He’d lifted the blanket and let her under, and she’s maneuvering hers around his shoulders as well. She pinches him in the process and he yelps.

“You sure are cuddly with that shit in your system.” For all his joking Sharky is, unsurprisingly, entirely comfortable with her using him as a pillow. He’s still shaking and his legs are cold under the blankets. “You don’t even let me hug on you on a good day.”

“Yeah, well.” Rook shrugs and doesn’t continue that sentence. “Maybe that’s what Jacob Seed needs, a good dose of Bliss.”

“Think they’re kinda immune to it at this point.” Sharky frees one hand to scratch his nose. Casual. A tell. “Why’d you say that, anyway?” She should know better. _No one gets it_. The Bliss is fading, now, she should have more of a hold on her tongue, and yet…

“Last run-in I had with him…” Sharky is languid beneath her, and his hand is still on her shoulder. Rook swallows. She doesn’t have to give too many details. Right? “Pratt was there. Deputy Pratt.” _Sharky knows who that is, dumbass, how many times has he arrested him?_ “Anyway uh… he touched him, just like, on the shoulder. Jacob got all weird.”

“Like no-homo weird?” Leave it to Sharky to come up with the most absolutely banal reason.

“No, like-” Rook pauses, and hides her face in gentle dip between Sharky’s torso and arm. “Like I do. As in, y’know, no hugs even on a good day?”

“Shit, you got a point. Maybe if you dosed ‘im up real good and someone hugged the sonuvabitch once in a while he wouldn’t have turned out so bad.”

Rook recalls the long walk to Angel’s Peak, and about the stories John and Joseph have hissed to her. She thinks it’s highly unlikely Jacob has ever been loved that gently in his life. Part of her feels remorseful for the off-handed way they’re discussing it, but then her brain supplies everything Jacob Seed has made her do and the feeling fades.

“So.” Sharky pats her shoulder. “So.” He begins again and squeezes her shoulder. She breathes in a heavy amount of dust waiting for him to speak. “That’s why you’re coming down from the mountains looking like that, huh?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it, Shark.”

“Alright.” It’s very warm under the blankets, now, and the Bliss has worn off, but Rook doesn’t pull away and Sharky doesn’t let her go. Apparently having built a habit of repeating himself, he nods, squeezes her, and says softer, “Alright.”


	2. Winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the comments on the last chapter, glad that people are enjoying this! i've decided this'll be about five chapters... though i had thoughts for a sixth as well so who knows. this chapter is kind of expository so forgive me, and with new dawn out this has officially entered a VERY big canon divergence what with... baby carmina's presence, and all.
> 
> heed new tags, and enjoy.

“Ouch.”

“Be quiet.” Grace mutters.

Rook shifts in the lawn chair and the other woman throws her a glare that settles her. They’re sitting on the back porch of the Armstrong residence. The air is biting at Rook’s skin, but then again so is the needle Grace is pulling through her leg, slow and careful. Beneath her the worn plastic creaks when she shifts, and Grace sighs. She flicks her ponytail over her shoulder in annoyance. A bead of blood weeps out of the still-exposed lower half of the gash, and Grace is forced to pause in her stitching to wipe it away.

“…Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Her voice brooks no arguments.

The night is so late is might as well be morning, but Rook tends to not know what sleep is these days. She’d had a nap, actually, between acquiring the wound and waking up to find it had bled through the bandaging _and_ her pants and she’d realized it needed stitches. A wonder she woke up in the first place. Grace has spent the better part of an hour working her magic on Rook. Aside from the whole _non-anesthetic-aided-needle-poking_ , it’s been kind of nice to sit together.

“Next time, find the road.” Grace sits back and cracks her neck, setting aside the needle. She’s looking a little worse for wear herself- her knuckles are split, the right side of her face is swollen, and Rook had to help her with a little dislocation problem earlier. Nothing a little elbow grease couldn’t fix. (Funny. Rook used to be kind of squeamish, nearly overreacting to every ailment. _Funny_.)

“Yeah, yeah. Not like it would’ve made much of a difference at that incline.” Rook draws her leg out of Grace’s lap and gingerly leans forward, testing her weight. It aches and wobbles and she sighs.

Snow has begun to fall in the mountains. In the distance she can see their peaks grow whiter, like lipstick being refreshed with a new coat every morning. It’s been a good excuse to stay out of the region, and though she’d wasted a lot of time recovering in the Henbane, the winter meant less Bliss to ambush. So she’d ambled on down to the Valley, and Grace had been helping her out. Now it looks like she’s going to be out of commission for a short period again, and on top of the encroaching snow it has her feeling sour.

“Let’s get outta the cold, Dep.”

Grace holds out her hand and helps Rook leverage herself to her feet. They both wince and hobble into the house. The door closes with a squeal of overworked hinges; beyond the wood, snow begins to drift into the Valley as daylight breaks over the horizon.

 

“Look!” Her finger juts out extravagantly and she smiles wide. “Lookit’ that! Snow!”

“Can you bring my child inside before you _both_ catch pneumonia?” Kim is shivering in the doorway and halfheartedly glaring at Rook. Rook is cradling Carmina in her arms, bouncing her a little to make her giggle (and to keep herself warm.) The infant is clenching her chubby fists within her tiny mittens, and her nose is flushed pink, and Rook is smitten.

“It’s her _first snow_ , Kim!” Rook cries indignantly, but marches carefully back across the slick porch and corrals the woman back into the house. The airstrip is coated in a solid 8 inches of white fluff, and more is coming down. It had been a bitch to make it here, even leaving Grace’s place when it had barely been an inch. No plows in cult-locked Hope County, unfortunately. She’d bundled in every shirt she owned and driven an ATV. It had taken awhile to remember what warmth was.

Carmina burps and makes a whiny noise, then starts to squirm fitfully. In response to this, Rook carefully hands her over to Kim with a winning smile. “Okay, mommy time.”

“Ohh, of course. Mommy time for _diaper change_.” Kim rolls her eyes and accepts her daughter, cooing at her. ” _You sure are a little shit machine!_ ” Carmina’s slaps a mitten-clad hand onto her mother’s cheek and wails.

“I might’ve deserved that.” Kim sighs, then totes her daughter over to the couch to change her diaper.

“You think Nick needs help in the hangar?” Rook peeks out the window, but details are lost in the flurries of fat flakes.

“Nah, he’s got it. And even if he didn’t you don’t need to be going out in that.” When Rook had shown up at the Rye’s early that morning Kim had nearly throttled the life out of her. The words _irresponsible_ , _death wish,_ and _bad influence_ might have come up. Well, all of Rook’s fingers and toes are intact _thank-you-very-much_ , and she got to hold her goddaughter so it’s a win-win on her account. (Okay, she definitely watched the baby so that her friends could go back to sleep. She even changed her diaper. Rook has paid her penance for irresponsibility. At least this instance of it.)

“You guys sure you don’t mind me crashing a few days?”

“I’ll personally kill you if you step foot out of this house for anything more than fire wood, and then I’d be an asset to the fuckin’ Peggies, and you don’t want that, do you?” Kim smiles sweetly. Rook lets out a strained laugh. (She already has the Mom Look down pat. The pressure of her eyes has Rook clamming up and nodding.)

“And just so you know, Grace informed me of your little boo-boo.”

“Okay I think we’re going maybe a little too far into you mother-henning me-” Mom Look. Rook swallows and glares at her, then stomps into the kitchen. She winces the whole way.

 

Christmas sneaks up on Falls End with another dump of snow and a half-hearted smattering of twinkling lights. Mary May puts out her usual Mooning Santa atop the Spread Eagle. Rook sighs a little fondly when she sees it, remembering this time two years past when she’d been working as a dispatcher and had to send Joey out to politely ask her to take it down. Per Mary May’s recollection, Joey had wasted a half hour chatting at the bar before walking back to the substation, never mentioning the wagging, neon ass over their heads.

Thinking about Joey makes Rook sad, in a way that makes her damn glad the bar is open and she’s in it. Domestic ran out a while ago, but Rook’s not touching the homemade stuff. Mary May still has a decent supply of liquor, though, so Rook nurses her guilt over a glass of whiskey while Casey takes a break from the kitchen to play a game of eight-ball. She watches the balls spin across green felt with her cheek pressed against the bar.

What is she doing? Her coworker, her _friend,_ is being held hostage by a mad man and she’s letting a little snow slow her down? She’s drowning her sorrows in a bottle in a dive bar? Fuck, she spent three of the past four days napping on the Rye’s couch and doting on Carmina, edging her name into baby talk as often as she could. She’s become lazy and pathetic.

“Why the long face, Deputy?” Mary May refills her glass and the bottle thunks onto the bar next to her head. Rook winces.

“Just a little self-pity.” She knocks back her drink and sighs. “Nothing that this won’t fix.”

“My experience, it makes it a lot worse,” the bartender grins at her, tops up her glass, then knocks her knuckles against the bar top. “Last one, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Rook swirls the liquid in her glass morosely. The grain of the bar shows through bottom of the glass, stained wood under a thick layer of veneer. Her face is warm and her head feels muzzy- she knows she should slow it down, but instead she drains her glass. Heat continues to pulse in her head and down into her torso and she sighs wetly. A memory swims up through the inebriation, suddenly, powerfully.

 

_“It’s a shame, you know.”_

_Rook weakly raises her head from the dirt. Her arms had grown tired of being used as a pillow long ago, so she’s made do with the ground. Time has passed- when last she looked it had been early morning, cool sky blue, and now the heavens are golden-red and dying. She closes her eyes and opens them again- not a blink, because she falls into it, perhaps dozes. His presence draws her back out. She craves him to speak, to elaborate._

_“Hnh?” is all she can manage. He squats, and peers through the bars at her. It makes her moan, for his shadow cools her skin where it has been exposed to the sun all day as she lay in the same place._

_“What we have to use you for. You’re good at it.” He cocks his head, and his gaze cuts through her. Again she makes a weak noise. Good at what? What is she good at? Getting captured? Killing on command? Killing because she has no_ choice _. Hurt, kill, it’s all she does. “Shame to let that go to waste.” He finally says. The sun is gone, but she feels warmed under his eyes._

“Happy fuckin’ _New Year!_ ”

Rook’s been busy. Busier than busy. She’s been razing the countryside, blowing up silos, clearing out outposts. They don’t expect her. The chill of winter had truly settled over Hope County, making it more than dangerous to even be outside. But she’s had a one-track mind for a few days, and so she shrugged off Kim’s threats of bodily dismemberment and death. Seed Ranch had fallen in the night, when it was negative twenty degrees, the skeleton guard picked off like flies and those within strangled in their sleep.

John hadn’t been happy.

Which brings Rook to here, now, mowing down a group of Blissed-out Peggies and clawing her way out of his bunker. (She’d made it to where he’d taken Hudson, grinding her teeth, grinning to see him through the glass. He’d named her Wrath and she’d readily agreed, then wouldn’t let him finish and slammed the butt of her rifle into the small pane of glass. It hadn’t budged. John had been less than impressed.) Then came the gas, the droves of followers. Guilt gets pushed far below the rage, like a pinprick of light at the long, dark tunnel that she’s finding never ends.

She maybe chose a cheesy line. No one laughs. Of course, that might be due to the grenade that exploded. She peers around the box and finds no one waiting for her, and begins her final ascent up the stairwell. John is speaking his nonsense over the intercom but her ears are ringing and it sounds distorted. A Bliss container had blown below, and her vision sparkles. It blanks completely when she comes out of the door, bright sunlight bouncing off snow, and then she’s spraying and praying as she books it through the drifts of fluffy white.

Down the mountain when she finally stops to breathe, Dutch’s surprised voice emanates from her radio. Next comes a burp of static and she fiddles with the dial, until Kim’s voice comes in loud and clear begging her to get back to the Rye’s. Rook grunts out a noise. She loves Kim, and Kim is the fighter of the pair. She’ll never understand why she won’t just let her do what she needs to do. No one needs to worry about her- as long as her feet and hands are functioning, can get her where she needs to go and do what she needs to do, she’s going to get the job done. This is the promise she’s made herself anew. No more sitting on her ass.

Eden’s Gate is going down. Every last piece of land will be reclaimed, every piece of property and tricked-out pick-up will be burned. Rook will attest to it with her dying breath if she must. She will sin, again and again, if it means peace is restored and less people have to bear the burden. She’ll rescue her friends.

And when it’s all over, if she’s left standing, well that’ll just be a stroke of good fortune- unintended.

 

“Don’t be so hard on him, Joseph.”

The words are calm and low across the table. Joseph stops speaking and turns his head slowly, almost a little disbelieving. Jacob rarely speaks out- not meek, just confident that his younger brother knows what he’s doing. Or so Joseph thought. He furrows his brow.

“Twice, the Deputy had slipped from his custody.”

“You could say the same for me.” Their eyes meet, a heated clash of blue. Neither breaks, so Faith clears her throat.

“She’s quite strong. Brother Jacob has seen to that, yes? Perhaps-”

Now Joseph turns his eyes to her- she shuts her mouth, works her throat, and steels her gaze. “Perhaps this is what the Voice intends, Father. That she should be free. After all, not all of your Word has come to pass.” Her voices is placid and lilting, the same as always. She’s fidgeting with the spoon in her tea. The plates around the table have long been cleared, but family dinner had been drawn out when Joseph had expressed his distaste for the Deputy’s escape from John’s bunker the week past.

Joseph considers what his sister has said. He mulls it over, looking between Jacob and John both. His own tea has grown cold, untouched. “She has not been to the Whitetails, nor the Henbane in some time. She cowers in the Valley. She finds it the easiest target.” His voice is soft but his words are icy. “You cannot deny this.”

The siblings share a look, and John murmurs, “Joseph, I-”

“Her eyes haven’t been opened, Father.” Faith reaches out and lays a hand atop Joseph’s. “She dances into the Henbane, but my gunners have hardly sighted her, and her Sherriff is still holed up in the jail. The only headway she’s made in the Henbane is in him, and in drawing Boshaw into the Resistance. She hasn’t let me- let us- show her the grace of the Bliss.” Faith hasn’t had the chance to show her the Light, to turn her to the truth, since her leap of faith. It’s as if their dear Deputy doesn’t like the Bliss, a wonder why.

Jacob’s expression turns dark. “Do you really want to risk turning her into an Angel?”

“Better a part of the flock than to be the big bad wolf.” Faith replies, smiling sweetly.

“There is a grain of truth to what Faith says.” John edges in. “Entice her by reminding her of what you have: the Marshal. The marina, and the water plant… countless others. Her sin is not Pride… that she cares so much for the nonbelievers is her weakness. She’ll have no choice but to cross through oceans of Bliss, and with spring coming…” He looks across the table at Joseph, whose expression is guarded.

“Fresh blooms.” Faith agrees, smiling broadly. “Better than even last season, more potent than ever. We can make her see, with the Bliss. Give me a chance, Father. I won’t disappoint.” _Unlike the others_ goes unsaid, but hangs above them all. Jacob has gone back to his usual quiet self, but his eyes burn.

Joseph folds his other hand over Faith’s, and lets his lips quirk into an almost-smile. “It won’t be easy, dear sister. You must have a good plan.”

“Don’t worry. Our brothers will be of help.” She turns to them, her eyes crinkling and cheeks dimpling, saccharine and soft. “Won’t you?”


	3. Spring, pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update, this thing is _really_ running away from me (hence the updated chapter count.) Also went ahead and slapped the slow burn tag on there because... yeah, who am I kidding? Though there's a little more Jacob this time around, if you squint. Enjoy!

“You’re kidding.”

Hurk looks up, smiling and bemused. “’Course not.”

“Pizza?”

“Found ‘em in a deep freezer in the shed out back. Might be a bit freezer burnt, but-”

“Oh sweet Christ, how I’ve missed you.” Rook dramatically falls to her knees in front of the oven, knowing just beyond the door is slowly baking cheese and pepperoni. Hurk chuckles. Under cover of night, Rook had made the long trip upriver to meet on the Drubman compound with him and Sharky. They’re supposed to be planning an attack, but as soon as Rook had woken up and smelled food, she knew all bets were off.

“Sharky still have beer?”

“Yup.” Hurk pops the ‘p’ and grins.

“Ugh. I’m trying to be _good_.” Rook warns him. “I came here to get shit _done_.”

“Now why would you ever think we’d get anything accomplished?” That’s Sharky, who sidles into the kitchen and tosses his arm across Rook’s shoulders. “I think a night in with pizza is just what you need.”

“Y’sure been keeping busy in the Valley, Dep.” Hurk is puttering around the kitchen looking for potholders. “Heard you took John Seed out. Can’t be true, huh?”

Rook’s chest suddenly burns and she places a self-conscious hand over her collarbone. Beneath her shirt the tattoo itches. John Seed had certainly given her a run for her money. She has a flash of his duster billowing in the frigid wind up on the mountain: dark navy blue flashing against the snow and the flora. He’d begged her. Her skin had been stinging, nearly numb at that point. Late snow had been falling, and all she’d had on was a jacket Nick had shoved at her, face steaming. He was angry. She was, too.

“No.” She tells Hurk. “It’s not.”

“Shoot.” Sharky clicks his tongue. “Fucker deserves it.”

“Mmh.”

 

_“Okay. Okay, wait.” Rook is breathless. There’s blood running down her belly, soaking the hem of her pants. Some comes from her chest, but the rest is from her shoulder, a stray bullet from the chase. Nick’s jacket hangs open and her skin is numb where it’s exposed, which is most of her torso from navel to collar. The blood might be actively cooling on her skin, making it worse. John has a clammy hand clamped around her wrist, and she’s staunching the flow of blood around the knife in his side._

_John isn’t making it easy. He’s clawing at her skin, raising lines and blood on her hands. She hisses at him and digs into the wound meanly._

_“You’re going to pay. I’m not letting you die here.” Rook sniffs and finds that she’s crying, snot dribbling out of her nose. “You’ll pay.”_

_“Where’s that Wrath now?” John asks, voice wounded and smug in equal measure._

_Rook, for a moment, sickly pictures twisting the blade. To have a perfect, cinematic moment of fury. Her chest hurts. She sobs angrily, instead._

“Earth to Dep.” Sharky waves a ring-clad finger in her face.

“Huh?”

“Pepperoni or supreme?” Hurk is already munching on a slice. Rook blinks and gently rubs at her chest. Her skin stings.

“Supreme.”

Sharky pulls a face. “Y’all disgust me.”

“You’re missin’ out.” Hurk says. Rook watches as they scuffle at the counter over the shitty frozen pizza, and a little of her tension bleeds away.

 

Later that week, their plans go into action.

Hurk knows the layout the best. The three of them had agreed that he should go in while Rook keeps her distance, and Sharky will be waiting for a signal in the lower wood line. It makes her anxious, to put her friends in danger and be the backup, but Sharky had insisted. With how much headway they’ve made they can’t afford to have her kidnapped again, or so he says.

“Gotta get Aunt Addie out, before they start plantin’ for the new season.” Sharky had also said.

By Rook’s estimate, 90% of what Sharky says is stupid, offensive, or both, but he’d managed to miss the mark on both of those this time. She has no choice but to trust in his plan. She’s in place in the forest, a rocky overhang shading her while stone digs into her stomach. Hurk is enacting the (very stupid) first part of their plan, waltzing up to the Peggy chilling in a truck parked in front of the Marina. Sharky is-

“Will you _shut up_?” Rook begs. The fucker has been whistling _KC & the Sunshine Band_ over the radio. It sounds like someone is blasting disco at her through a door. If he weren’t well down the hill, obscured by trees, she might strangle him. As it stands she’s considering lining up a shot. _Give It Up_ is playing on repeat in her head, now.

“Keepin’ myself entertained.” She can hear the smile in his voice through the radio.

“Do that quieter, then, not _at_ me!”

“No fun.” He mutters, but the radio falls blessedly silent.

She looks down her scope. The Peggy is no longer in his truck, and instead lies incapacitated next to the rear tire well. Hurk is nowhere to be seen. She trails over to where a hastily erected alarm still flashes green. They’re still in the clear, for now. Hurk is surprising her.

“Dep.”

“Go ahead.”

“One of the gunner boats, on the river-” Sharky’s voice is serious.

Rook looks. The raft is propelling toward the dock, and the lead is pointing at something ashore. The driver is leveling his hunting rifle up, while the gunner stands at attention.

“Standby.” She tells Sharky, then inhales sharply and lines up the shot. Her scope is filled with the foggy blue of the lake several feet from the front Peggy’s head. She squeezes the trigger, and in seconds her scope is filled with the sight of brain matter spraying out, shocking the man at the motor. Quickly, she slides the action and another bullet gets fitted down to replace the cartridge that hits the rock with a hollow tinkle. Another shot easily takes out the startled driver, already coated in blood. Rapid-fire shots ring out from the gunner’s nest and Rook swears.

“Sharky. You gotta move in.”

Rook ignores the gunner- he’ll have to choose between manning the gun and coming to shore- and swivels to the first flashing alarm tower she sees. Metal pops off from the force of her shot, shrapnel spinning out. She takes a few breaths in between reloading another time, then holds it again when she levels her gun at the next alarm. A Peggy’s hand gets caught in the crossfire. The yellow box covering the pull station blooms with blood.

She exhales. Static explodes across the radio, and Hurk comes over, sounding out of breath “Shit, that sure is a lot of shootin’ yer doin’ Dep.”

“One more.” Rook warns him.

When she hones in on the third alarm, a giggle resounds beside her ear and her blood runs cold. She jumps, slightly, knocking the barrel out of position. She tries desperately to ignore the apparition and repositions her gun. Faith is smiling; Rook can feel the curve of her lips at her ear and it makes her burn furiously. Her shot finds a home, whizzing just past the head of a Peggy. She thinks she sees an ear go with it.

“Fuck off, you’re not real.” Rook swipes angrily over her ear, like Faith is a gnat who’s just not getting the picture. Her hand meets nothing but cold air, but the giggling continues.

“It’s been so long since you’ve returned to my region. To the Bliss. Have you been reflecting on your leap of Faith?”

Rook remembers: being high, in more ways than one, wavering on her feet and clutching at the rough-hewn stone of the book in the Father’s hands. She’d spent an interminable time shivering in the wind, waiting for her high to fade. It never had. Eventually, she jumped. It had been a long way down.

“Leave me alone.” Rook chooses to answer, sounding like a child on the playground, whining petulantly at a bully.

Faith sighs. “Here you are, causing trouble. Trying to “free” another sinner. Why can’t you be like the marshal, hmm?” Rook feels a small, cold hand on the back of her neck. Faith’s voice is kind even when her words are not. “He’s seen the light. That’s all I want to do, Deputy. Help you see.”

Rook’s vision is sparkling, and the by now familiar feeling of Bliss in her lungs has her breathing slowly. “Faith, no.” She feels herself fading fast and knows it’s no use- this is what she detests, this loss of control. She can fight Jacob, fight John. But Faith is a sweet smile, soft hands, and _not actually there._ How can she fight this?

“Good work, Dep. We’re in with Addie.” Sharky’s voice cuts through the fog. Rook jumps up and whirls around, bringing her rifle up as she goes. Her arms and the gun go right through Faith, and the woman fizzles out in a fine, olive mist. The laughter that echoes promises it won’t be the last time Rook sees her.

Once reunited with her friends down the hill, she gets reintroduced to Adelaide Drubman. She’s spunky and tiny in a way that doesn’t quite befit her age, but Rook figures damned if anyone would ever say that to her. Her son and nephew look thoroughly disgusted as she hangs all over her so-dubbed “boy toy.”

“Pleasure to meet ya, hon. Hope these knuckleheads haven’t given me a bad name.” She simpers. (Hurk mutters an abashed “Momma…”)

Rook blinks slowly, then smiles awkwardly at the woman. She’s had exactly three run-ins with her before. One- a drunken domestic her first week in dispatch. The second time had been jimmying Adelaide’s car door open outside the general store. And lastly, but perhaps most importantly, after living in Hope County for approaching three years Rook had decided to finally visit the marina. This had been met by walking in on Boy Toy’s bare ass being shown a _very_ good time. Figures Adelaide would conveniently _forget_ all of these previous encounters. Rook wants to know what’s in the Drubman/Boshaw bloodline that makes them like… _this_. She’s still a little high, so she almost asks her, but she figures neglecting to rescue her for going on four months might already have her high on the shitlist. Not a woman she wants to be on the bad side of, so she sticks out her hand after an entirely too-long pause.

“Real pleasure.” Rook agrees. Addie grins, vulpine, and grips her palm. They have a momentary battle, refusing to break. Sharky clears his throat after a solid thirty seconds of this performance.

“Oh, right. Where’re my manners? Come inside, startin’ to smell like dead Peggy out here.” She wrinkles her nose and turns to head into the large boat storage, slapping Boy Toy’s ass as she goes.

As the four of them follow in her stead, Rook sidles up to Hurk and lowers her voice. “You owe me big time.”

He sighs. “Yeah, I know.”

 

_Everything is red. Foggy, muted, blood-red. Nothing is clear, just shapes, but she can taste copper on her tongue-_ everything _is red, the air, the almost-things in the darkness, the feeling of something on her skin. She never thought that red had a particular taste or sensation but there’s no denying it with the evidence in her mouth, on her arms. Her lungs are burning and that sensation, too, is red. Pain is red, isn’t it? She can sense that, now. Red is this aching, twitching feeling, torn open and exposed._

_“Get up.”_

_When did she get on the ground? There it is, beneath her hands and knees, scraped up redredred. She’s choking on the fog, now, chest a tight coil of tension. There’s not enough air left, just vapor, but she raises her body up obediently and keeps running. She’d been running. From what? When she tries to look behind her there is only darkness, only shapes, only red._

_“Good.”_

_Rook knows something is following her. It’s stalking through the void with intent, gaining on her. No matter how much ground she covers it feels as if it’s just behind her, though no matter how many times she glances back she can’t catch a glimpse of it. Hot breath fans across her neck but she finds herself incapable of speech, of even a frightened noise, only able to gasp for oxygen and push ahead._

_“Come back to me.”_

_Teeth sink into her ankle and finally she cries out. Her body hits the ground and knocks every precious bit of wind out of her. Her chin gets smeared with mud, her leg pulses, her eyes seem to spin in her skull. Again she feels a bite, on her calf, then higher, gnawing into the soft space behind her knee. This is how red feels: a visceral giving sensation, welling hot and warm from underneath her skin to mix into the dirt she can feel under her knee. She is powerless, being eaten alive._

_“Rook.”_

“Rook!”

Someone is screaming. Or perhaps there’s a cougar, yowling something pitiful outside the jail. No. No, it’s her. She’s trapped in her sleeping bag, and Jess’ is holding her down by her shoulders while she thrashes, preventing her from further entangling herself. “Shut up, for fuck’s sake!”

She does. It’s easier, now that the pain isn’t so real. Her leg is tight- a cramp. A fucking cramp. Rook squeezes her eyes shut and tries to get her breathing back under control. It sounds loud in the small office they’re sleeping in. Behind them the door quakes- someone attempting to get in to help, no doubt. Jess draws her hands away slowly, giving Rook a questioning look, and she nods in response just once, shaky.

The other woman gets up and unlocks the door, exchanging a few quiet words with the person on the other side. She eases open the door and Rook sees the Sheriff peeking in, face troubled.

“M’fine boss.” She croaks. To prove it, she kicks her way out of her sleeping bag and starts rummaging in her backpack. Rook can feel the both of them watching her, so she makes her business quick and shoulders up to Jess. “I’ll let you get back to sleep, I’m gonna go shower.” Her voice is hoarse, and they’re both looking at her like she has a terminal illness. For a few moments she allows this, then she gets tired of the awkward silence and edges into the small gap, past Whitehorse, and down the hall.

They start talking when she’s ten paces down the hall.

The jail is one of the few places that has consistent running water, and it runs hot. Water pressure is another thing, but Rook figures two out of three is good enough. She stands under the gentle spray, picking the dirt from under her nails and staring numbly at the dingy tile. When they’re clean she scratches at her skin, soaping her body and scrubbing away the dirt with unkind hands. The tattoo is so tender to the touch she flinches. She gentles her hands and tries to delicately apply more soap.

“Dep?”

Rook freezes, pressing both hands over her chest in fear. Unfortunately the pressure is too much, making her gasp in pain and drop her hands. _Just Jess_. She tells herself. There’s a curtain in the way, too, but she doesn’t want anyone to know. Nick, Jerome, Mary May- they’d all been sworn to secrecy. Plenty of the resistance had sins showing, but something about hers makes her anxious, fearful. Angry, most of all. Then when she thinks about what the sin is in conjunction with her anger she begins to feel confused, and confusion isn’t what she or the people of Hope County need.

“Go back to bed.” Rook says.

Silence. Rook strains to hear over the sound of the water hitting the tile and gurgling down the drain. She knows she’s being unfair. A soft shuffling meets her ears, and then the soft woof of air as the door is eased closed. After another few moments Rook turns off the tap and peers around the dividing wall. Satisfied that Jess is gone, she wraps a towel around herself and emerges into the locker area.

On top of her clothes is a tube of antibiotic ointment and a handful of cotton swabs.

When she slips back into their room, Jess is facing the wall on her palette. Rook rearranges her sleeping bag and plucks at a few loose threads. It takes her awhile to work up her courage. “Did Nick tell you?” He seemed the likeliest culprit.

“You always sleep on your stomach.”

Rook smiles and tucks her feet into the bag. “I guess I should have thought-through trying to pull-one over on you, huh?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

She digs her fingers into her calf where the cramp has left the muscle sore. “Thank you.” It seems she’s always thanking people, these days. It’s never enough.

“Sure, Dep.” They go back to bad. Sleep, too, is never enough.

 

“John Seed is alive.”

Rook tries to look surprised, but she doesn’t think she pulls it off. Nick had said it with such contempt she feels she ought to at least try, but Sharky and Hurk are nodding. “Yeah, we know.”

“You _know_!?” Nick’s voice raises to that special octave reserved just for all things John Seed related.

Hurk performs the damning action of _pointing at her_. “Dep told us.”

Nick turns wounded eyes on her. “What the hell is he talkin’ about?”

She twiddles her thumbs. “…To be fair, I merely told them I didn’t kill him.”

“Well I was sure under the impression you did.”

Rook wags a finger and grins awkwardly. “Now, now Nicholas.” She might be drunk. She’s also pretty sure Nick isn’t short for a damn thing. “I did leave him on a mountain in the woods with a very long and sharp hunting knife _very much_ inside him!”

“That’s what she said.” Chimes in Sharky. _Not helping_.

“I noticed you neglected to say he was dead when you left him there.”

Rook twiddles her fingers. “Well, I thought…” She swivels her wrist and plops her chin into her hand to signify how deep her thinking is. “If I left him there, and he bled out, it wasn’t really _me_ doing the killing.” Partially true.

“You didn’t account for the fact that any damn Peggy could happen upon him in _“his”_ territory?” Nick gesticulates his air quotes so wildly that Rook bobs her head to follow them. Actually, she had. Will she tell him that? Absolutely not.

“We were ass-deep in the forest and I know how to stab a man.” She shrugs. “I’m not God.” Chosen One, maybe. She knocks back her drink bitterly at the thought.

Nick grinds his teeth and looks between her and the others. Outside the 8-bit it’s pouring rain. They’d decided to hole up here tonight together, and he’d agreed on first watch. Now, he looks like he’s contemplating the long, perilous drive back down into the valley. Rook pushes her glass away from her and sighs. She can’t explain to him- another person who just _wouldn’t get it_. Sometimes it troubles her- is she really supposed to be doing this? What if she really is part of some greater plan? Earlier today, when she’d been driving down from Hurk’s, he’d been fiddling with the radio and an emergency alert had warbled over the air. At first she figured Peggy nonsense, but it was on the reclaimed airwaves. News. Bad news. Outside of their little shithole things are going downhill fast, and Rook doesn’t know if she feels numb or feels too much. So what if she couldn’t bring herself to kill John Seed? The way things are looking…

Well, if she says that, they might think her a Peggy.

“Just make sure that next time it works.”

Her blood runs icy. “Next time? I severely disabled him if anything, Nick. He’s not going to be out there drowning and tattooing anytime soon, if ever!”

“Have you forgotten what he did to me? What he did to my family?” Nick levels a hand at her, pointing accusatorily. Things go deadly silent- she can’t even hear Sharky or Hurk breathing.

“No, Nick.” She stands up, pushing her barstool back noisily. “I did not forget that he cut your skin off right in front of me.” With an amazing amount of calm, she pushes the stool back into place and picks up her shotgun. The three men are watching her. Nick’s hands are now gripping the bar, knuckles white, and his brow has a little upturn to it. Like he can’t decide how to feel. She crosses to the front door and presses it open. The broken lock gives easily, and the sound of water running down the gutters filters into the main barroom. “I’ll take first watch. Get some sleep.”

As rain mists on her face, Rook wishes she didn’t feel the vicious need to remind Nick she thought she was a part of the family, now, too.


	4. Spring, pt. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, longest chapter yet, I'm pretty sure. This fic... completely has a mind of it's own. Things get kind of spirally and dark in this chapter (as always, please heed the new tags.) You'll finally get to see a lot more Jacob! And uh... just wait until next chapter to REALLY hate what happens here.

Morning breaks through the trees like a slow exhale. Light dapples the forest floor in half-leaf shapes and shadows. The air goes from frigid to tentatively warm. There’s a soft breeze coming through the underbrush that has Rook smiling. The sensation of it across her skin is nice, and it reminds her of long drives with the windows rolled down. It's a nice memory, one of fresh air rolling through the cab, and a soft Montana sunset kissing the peaks of the mountains in the distance.

She sits up stock-straight, disrupting the calm. On all sides of the clearing there are wildflowers and Bliss. This is not where she fell asleep. She’s having trouble recalling where she was last, but this is most certainly not where she’s meant to be.

The back of her head is wet with blood, and she probes until she finds the gash that begins to weep once more. Bliss makes her sluggish. She worms out of her sweater and takes off her under shirt, ripping down one of the seams and folding it until it will suffice as a bandage. It’s just cold enough that she shivers, that she feels the loss of the extra layer when she pulls her sweater back on.

Rook stumbles her way out of the clearing, weaponless. The sun is low enough and the trees sparse enough that she can pick her way through the woods. Bliss is growing wild and rampant, so much so that she cannot avoid interacting with it. Her head feels foggy and she has to stop frequently. Strange things begin to flash through her mind, some half-memories lost to the flowers, others things that may not be real.

 

_“She’ll be Stronger for it.” A voice that is earnest remarks, with cold hands clasping her face._

_“That’s not your decision.” This voice: a growl, like a great beast. It makes her involuntarily writhe away from the hands._

_“Strength of the spirit… strength… body…” Rook starts to ebb in and out of consciousness, catching only some of what the gentle voice says._

 

There is a low fog, and the ground starts to gently incline so that it disperses as she climbs. When she looks behind her, a shape trembles in the fog. She blinks and it disappears, but she feels eyes on her from all the trees, from all the bushes. Rook sticks a steadying hand out and brushes a low-hanging branch out of her path. A shuffling sound makes her look back, but it’s only a bird pecking in the dense carpet of leaves.

 

_“S’coffee in the kitchen.”_

_Rook looks over her shoulder. The rain had petered off to sprinkling around an hour ago, and she’s been sitting on the half-step up to the porch, enjoying the feeling of water on her skin. Nick is rubbing sleep from his eyes and finger combing his hair. He has deep circles under his eyes, and they look sad. She turns away from him and looks across the gravel parking lot. The light across the street flickers from time to time. She doesn’t know what to say, so she sets her rifle down on the porch and stands. He holds the door open for her when she passes, and she peeks back and watches as he sits in her spot, a lazy hand swinging her gun around into his lap._

_The coffee is instant. They don’t have much else. She appreciates him boiling water. She also appreciates that he recognizes she won’t be sleeping. Rook wonders if he got much sleep himself. After some consideration, she rinses the mug he’d left out and brings him another cup along with her own._

 

Light breaks through the tree line, bright and welcome and too-white. Finally she picks her way out of the woods. They breathe at her back, yawning mouths and staring eyes, a hungry feeling at her heels. In front of her stretches a field of Bliss, still new, the blooms small and half-open in the mid-morning sun. She thinks in the distance she can see a group of field hands clustered around a pick up. She ducks back into the underbrush and has to crouch, steady herself. She wonders how much time has passed between these flashes of memory and now- it might have been only hours. A cricket skitters through the grass and over her foot and she squeals without thought. Carefully, she peeks over the tops of the Bliss flowers, and sees that the workers aren't bothered. At times she wonders how they get anything done when they’re this unobservant.

She begins to crabwalk around the edge of the field. Her thighs are burning by the time she reaches the fence on the far side, and she lumbers over it like a foal on shaky, newborn legs. The sun is edging past noon, dipping into the west and burning at her back. Dimly she remembers to check the bandage around her head, and when she touches it she feels that it’s damp with soaked-through blood.

 

_“Fuck.”_

_There are stars in her eyes. She blinks rapidly and scrabbles in the dirt. A large form is over her. She knows this form. She_ should _know this form. It’s dark and rain is misting on her skin, and her hands are bloodied and stinging where mud has gotten into the cuts there. A hand comes to the back of her neck and she bucks, or tries to, but she’s too dizzy._

_“Didn’t wanna do that. You’ll thank me later though.”_

_Oh. It’s him._

 

Rook has to keep going. The memory of Jacob surfacing fills her with fear. If there’s one thing she’s learned from her time with him, it’s that waking up in the wilderness with spotty memory means she’s done something bad. And this time she has no weapons or radio on her person to help herself out. The wound in her head probably needs staples or even stitches, with the rate it’s bleeding, and she has no earthly clue where she is. By any estimation she’s somewhere in the Henbane, but her memories have her second guessing herself. She doesn’t recall any of the Seeds going into one another’s regions to play their little games. It’s like they draw lines against each other, not just the citizens of Hope County. She wipes the sweat from her brow.

 

_“She’s starting to come around, you know.” Still those soft hands are on her, cradling her. “The Father can sense her doubts, her fears. She knows He is right. It’s only a matter of time, brother.”_

_A grunt, noncommittal._

_“What I’m doing will help bring her around completely. And then your little games… they’ll be pointless.”_

_There is a sudden shock of movement. The hands on her don’t move, but they tense. She can feel the presence of another person leaning in, over her body and into the space of the person touching her. They are all very close. She wonders why they’re in such a tight space._

_“I see through you.” A deep voice intones lowly, sure but not smug. A warning._

 

Rook starts to feel the ache of dehydration pounding in her skull. The few memories that had filtered through the Bliss and her injury are coming farther apart. Now she’s wracking her brain for even scraps of information. It makes the headache worse. Somewhere between the 8-bit and wherever she is now, she had a run in with Jacob Seed. The how and why escape her. There’s also the fact that she was somewhere with him and, likely, Faith, and then God knows how she ended up in the field.

It’s too dangerous to stick out in the open so she keeps retreating to the trees. She’s hurting for water by the time she stumbles across a road and up a crumbling hillside. Definitely been longer than a day without much, if any, water. The temperature is dropping again. There’s a smell, like soft, wet rot, and earth. Fresh water. The Henbane, or the lake. But that would mean she’s covered more ground than she thought or intended, and it would also mean she’s toeing the region line. If she’s not already in Jacob’s region. _Whitetails_ , she reminds herself. No matter what the Seeds call the areas of the county, it won’t ever be theirs.

The Bliss has dispersed. She only notices because after being in it for hours it’s taken a considerable amount of physical effort for it to wear off. With a clearer head, she finds her way to a trail. In her sorry state she’s been traipsing through the woods without a cause. Indeed, she can tell by the trees and ground she’s ended up in the northern part of the county.

Wetness at her nape makes her pause at a sagging wood bridge in her path. She touches there gingerly, hoping for sweat, but unsurprised when her palms comes back stained with blood. So clear-headed now, a memory comes to her almost painfully, her wound throbbing.

 

_Her hands are tight around a clenching throat. She can feel blood under her fingernails. Two calloused hands scratch the backs of her hands and forearms, drawing blood that runs down between her fingers. It stains the tawny facial hair of her victim. Their hair is long and unkempt. The vague sound of music is there, and several people yelling at once._

_“Weak-_ stupid-”

_“She didn’t have to- what are you-”_

 

Rook covers her face, gasping in pain. Her head is pounding. Familiar. That person had looked so familiar. She pulls up her sleeves and pays closer attention now to the scabbed welts there, which are fresher than the ones John had given her doing the same thing. A weak attempt at fighting her off when she was so deeply digging in.

_He_ came into the Henbane. He did whatever it is he _does_. He made her hurt…

She swallows down nausea and thinks of her goddaughter. _Oh, God…_

The realization that she wasted so much time in the Valley is hitting her with full-force regret. She’s gone from a region she had steadfastly ignored to a region she’s terrified to be in. Both are still swarming with Peggies, and are on even higher alert than normal. She’s bleeding, exhausted, and can’t tell which way is up. Now to top it all off, she’s pretty sure that she’s killed one of her best friends.

She might just have to sit down right there and cry. No one is around to judge her, so what does it matter? She loses some time like this, feeling sorry for herself and dizzy with blood loss. Eventually she has to pick herself up and drag on toward the smell of the water.

Rook is at a complete loss. If she’s done what she thinks she has, is there any going back? Will there be any forgiveness for her? Ultimately, does she want it? She’s begun to have her doubts about what she's doing; the Seeds she hates, but outside of this county the issues are bigger. She can’t live with herself, though, not with the idea that Nick might be- that she might have-

Something emerges from the trees, a hulking shape. She realizes she’s passed the rusting ladder to a tree stand too late as the mass hurtles at her from above. Rook tries to whirl around but ends up getting caught sideways in the impact, her shoulder meeting the ground with a wrenching pain. It’s a human on her, because hands start pressing at her, and she grapples weakly in the underbrush. Her left arm is completely useless, so she searches with her right for a face, for eyes or a nose to maim. The hands on her are trying to subdue her, and two of them functioning are better than her one. She jerks her knees up, pleased to hear a grunt.

A massive hand wraps around her neck. She strains against the grip and kicks out her legs. They’ve squirmed so she’s on her back and the form above her- draped in camo- is straddling her. Rook brings both knees up in a hard jab against her attacker, and their body jolts forward. A snarl works its way out of her, and she uses the moment of surprise to arch and bite the wrist of the hand strangling her. Meanwhile she wedges her knee up further between their bodies.

“Fuck. Stop _fighting_.”

Under her mouth lies scarred skin. The voice makes her body go strangely and traitorously pliant. Jacob’s hand, she realizes, is not choking but holding. They both breathe harshly in the moments after he reveals is identity to her, and she slowly withdraws her teeth from his arm. She can taste his blood in her mouth. For good measure she jerks her knee up and Jacob swears, and now his fingers do tighten.

“Try that again.” He grits out.

“Gladly.” She chokes. She tries to knee him in the groin again, but he’s bearing his weight onto her stomach now. Combined with the pressure on her windpipe, the fight quickly drains out of her.

“Good?” Jacob asks, and squeezes her throat once as a warning. She nods and he releases his hold. Rook spits in the general direction of his face, a mixture of blood and spittle spewing out. He sighs. “Thought you said you were good.”

“You broke my fucking arm.”

“You shouldn’t have turned.” His hand goes to her shoulder and pain flares down to her collarbone, bringing tears to her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Me? What the hell are you doing in the trees?”

“You’re supposed to be in Faith’s region.” He says it quietly, like it’s more to himself than her. He’s still probing her wound. “Shit. That’s bad.” She can feel blood. Tears are streaming out of her eyes and she blinks.

“I hate you.” She says, because it feels good. The body above her lurches upwards, and she remains on the ground, too weak to move.

“Get up.”

“Kind of can’t.” Part of her wants to die here. It would be so nice, to die unseen, no longer anyone’s pawn. Her body could fold into the leaves, feed the bugs, and all her misdeeds would be as forgotten as this place, this county, as her body. She _should_ die. “Just leave me here.” She suggests.

Jacob throws back his camouflage, revealing a face covered in paint. Some of it has faded from sweat, leaving disturbing streaks of green through his facial hair and down his neck. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He then leans down to heft her up and she resists, flinching back from his hands. She squirms so much he relents and lets her fall back, and she cries out as her shoulder and head hit the ground.

“You gonna stop being difficult?”

“You’ll get exactly what you want. Me going away, no longer an issue for you.”

Jacob makes a face. It’s hard to make out, what with the paint and the scars. She thinks it’s disappointment. That doesn’t seem right. He fists a hand in the front of her shirt and picks her up. Rook curls her hand around his wrist then sways weakly when he rights her on her feet.

“How long’s your head been bleeding?”

“Since you decided to club me, I guess.” She shrugs, then winces at her mistake. Her arm is almost numb with pain, coming out the other side of agony into a frightening loss of sensation. Rook is valiantly avoiding looking at what she knows is a compound fracture. There’s no use in playing any games or trying to resist, with him, though- she’s weak, probably dying. ‘Completely given up’ has never been more apt.

Jacob pauses. She has enough sense to realize he’s acting strangely.

“What were you doing out here?”

“Hunting.” He replies, curt. She frowns deeply, then figures this might be her only chance to get some info.

“How long ago did you hit me?”

“Three days ago, Deputy.”

Her stomach churns. She starts to sag forward and he catches her hands clasping her arms. A noise of pain escapes her.

“Knew this was a bad idea.” He mutters. Finally, blessedly, she loses consciousness.

 

_This nightmare is new, a Frankenstein of her usual torments. Here are the wolves, nipping at her heels, feasting on her flesh. Terror lives as a flavor in her mouth, pungent and nearly paralyzing her. Would that it was; instead she’s alive with motion, hands gripping, squeezing. It’s dark, and something is wet. She’s crying._

 

Rook comes to with a little shake, her eyes snapping open. There’s a rough pillow beneath her cheek. She peels away from it, feeling a thin crust of drool by her mouth. Her body is one pulsating ache, with increased pain in her arm and head. It’s dark, wherever she is. Even when she blinks the sleep from her eyes she can’t make out much. Once she’s become more alert she realizes her wounds have been cleaned and bandaged. She also realizes her legs are chained to the bed.

She spends a good amount of time groping one-handed around the cuffs on her ankles. They’re metal and heavy with no tangible locking mechanism. Surprisingly, they’re padded inside, so her chafing is at a minimum. The effort quickly catches up with her and she collapses back on the bed with a huff. Rook drifts in and out of sleep after that, too exhausted to make a concerted escape attempt.

Her arm aching is what wakes her next. There’s a light on in the room now, so she can see it’s bare. Her bed and a lamp are the only furnishings. There’s not even a window. In the new light she looks at her arm. It’s encased in a sling, and underneath she can feel a bulky splint and bandages. It pulse with pain, and she pushes up into a sitting position.

“Hello?” She calls out. The walls are concrete, and her voices echoes hollowly in the small room. No one responds but after a time long enough that she’s laid back down and is fitfully dozing, the door opens.

“Ugh.”

“I can leave.” He states blandly, though he closes the door and crosses the room. He’s carrying a first aid kit. Jacob looks his normal self, cleaned of paint and sweat, wearing his fatigue jacket again. He stops within arms-length of her, and she smiles.

“Afraid of lil’ ol’ me?”

He stares at her. She wonders why they do that, the Seeds. Wonders if no one ever taught them their manners. After a moment he holds up his hand, the sleeve of his jacket slipping down to reveal a bandage. “You get bitey again there’ll be a muzzle too.”

She smiles sweetly at him, then bares her teeth. “I’ll think about controlling myself if you brought me drugs.”

He tosses a bottle into her lap. She peers at it, then holds up her hand. “Um?”

“Nothing stopping you.” He folds his arms. Rook glares at him, then shoves the bottle between her thighs and fiddles with the child proof cap. Jacob watches silently.

“So. Joe got big plans for me?” She asks as she dry swallows two pills.

“He’s not aware you’re here.”

“Oh.” Her eyebrows jump up. “So _you_ have some big, creepy plans for me.”

This, unexpectedly, draws a reaction from him. His eye twitches and he hunches in on himself. Oh, right. Mr. Not-Loved-Enough. She gets the offense, unfortunately.

“Bold assumptions, Deputy. You’re not supposed to be here, and if I was going to do anything, I would be making you regret what you did to John.”

Again, Rook smiles. “Did he tell you he begged me?”

The bottle of pills goes clattering out of the bed, a cacophony of little pin-drop noises following, as Jacob pounces on her. He gets a hand around her throat, _always_ he goes for the throat. She claws at his forearm in retaliation so that he hisses. She’s grinning, beside herself at being able to goad him. In her position she doesn’t have much; honestly, she wishes she could forget everything that happened between her and John. But she’ll use her own trauma as a weapon if it means making Jacob Seed suffer, too.

Her vision darkens as he squeezes, but she refuses to drop her smile. In response his expression sours. “Consider it fortunate that I still have use for you.”

“ _Lucky_ me.” She gasps.

His face folds in on itself, a startled blink and flinch. He releases her and she sucks in air and rubs her neck gently. It’s already tender with bruising, and she foresees new fingerprint marks forming. Jacob looms over her a moment more.

“You are too... _strong_ ,” He grits the word out like it pains him. “- to waste. So for now, I’m giving you a chance. And in the end, I think you’ll make the right choice.”

She flips him the bird. He looks on, unimpressed, and draws away from her.

“My friends are still out there.” She reminds him.

“They’re useless without a figurehead.” He cocks his head at her. “You think they’ll save you every time? You really don’t get it. What you are.”

The objectification makes her flinch. “They’ll come.” She insists weakly.

Jacob pins her with a dark look. “Don’t count on it.”


	5. Summer, pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewrote this chapter somewhere around four times, so sorry that's it's taken awhile to get an update out. I know I keep adding chapters also, but bear with me haha. This IS going somewhere, I promise, and the Explicit rating will get fulfilled soon-ish. Nothing warranting tag changes in this chapter (I think?) so enjoy. Also I LOVE comments so feel free to leave those, y'know, if you wanna. (;

Time passes in nebulous waves in captivity, as Rook wavers in and out of feverish sleep. Sometimes the light is on, other times it’s dark; she never sees another person, though she thinks her bandages get changed. Her brain starts to work away, in the quiet hours, when consciousness if pain-filled and warm and she’s void of all company. She thinks that maybe Jacob visits again. She thinks it has to have been days- she feels greasy and uncomfortably sweaty whenever she moves. The quiet hours of being stuck in her own head seem to dwindle away as sleep takes her more and more.

And then, one day, she wakes up and the light is on and a Peggy is there. The pain is at a manageable level, and her brain feels less addled and more foggy- she’s felt this fog before, a long time ago, a swim up through anesthesia. Although she’s half awake, Rook is struck by how pretty the Peggy helping her is, with a square jaw and slate-grey eyes. Her dark hair is swept back, and she has a placid expression on her face. Rook croaks, and she looks up, then reaches somewhere out of sight and surfaces with a cup of water, straw dangling out for Rook to take.

The woman patiently holds the cup up until Rook has had her fill. She belches, slightly, as the straw is drawn away, and feels her stomach churn irritably. “Wha’appen?”

“There was an infection, in your arm.” She spares Rook a long look and smiles a bit sadly. For a moment Rook fears the worst, but when she looks over her arm is still there, entirely intact. “Brother Jacob had us help you.”

This alone sends Rook reeling. “Why?”

Mystified, the Peggy blinks at Rook. “You are to reach the atonement.” Said as if it’s as obvious as the sky being blue, or that humans need to breathe.

Rook quiets and sinks back into the mist of anesthesia-aided sleep. Her brain feels fried from the fever. She imagines that she’s left here, left to rot. A skeleton in the bed, a dusty room, for some poor soul to find after their great Collapse. Where are her friends? They never _do_ come, do they? How many times has she wasted away in some cage, with only a fear-stricken Pratt caring about her well-being? He got her out once, but probably not again.

Who is she kidding? She killed Nick. Who’s going to save her now?

 

The Deputy sleeps.

He checks in personally, once a week. He knows that she spends most of her time sleeping- side-effect of the infection and her recovery- but he wonders sometimes if she might be faking, just when he’s around. His Chosen attending to her gives him a daily report, paperwork that finds itself to his desk among other things he has to look over. Written in her tidy scrawl, he sees _Today she woke up briefly_. in the notes section.

Faith’s plan had done a number on her. There were a lot of variables that they didn’t quite account for. It had been John, initially, who was supposed to help- to make up for all his slip-ups. But then the Deputy had gone and stabbed his baby brother, and Jacob had to step up. He didn’t work well with Faith- he disliked the Bliss. But Joseph had given his go-ahead.

Jacob sets down his reports and rubs at his eyes tiredly. It’s another thing that he’s got to care for her, now. It’s going to confuse her, being treated this way. But Faith had proposed a gentler approach, and the Deputy wasn’t even supposed to be in his region. If Joseph knew, he’d be stern, unhappy, and Jacob didn’t want to deal with it. He’d made his reservations clear- he’d put time and effort into training her, and too much of Faith’s bliss might permanently addle their favorite sinner. Was an Angel really what Joseph wanted? The Father hadn’t been quite happy about that question. Jacob didn’t want an Angel. He wanted a soldier. And the Deputy had been shaping up to quite the model fighter.

He thinks about running her through her training, he won’t lie. Considers giving it a week and throwing her to the wolves, seeing if she’s quite as good one arm down and half-delirious. He thinks she would be. Seeing her plow through weaker trainees in his simulations fill him with pride. John would call it dangerous. But John’s on the compound, now, recovering from his near-murder, and what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. _Rookie_ she may be, but she doesn’t stop for anything. He’s seen her take a shot point blank and keep going, arms wrapping around a neck and choking her assailant out. But spending so much time healing her injuries might leave her too trusting, too soft. He’ll have to let her go, and wait for her to come running back.

She always does.

 

_He’s been sitting here for hours._

_Ultimately, it’s not a problem. Jacob is nothing if not a patient hunter. Even to the boring, open-ended wait, there is a certain thrill. Knowing what’s to come excites him. He does wish it weren’t so simple- she would never be so bold in his region. She has to hide with the other rats in the warren. Yet in the Henbane she sleeps soundly in the abandoned pizza parlor. Nick Rye is sitting on the front porch, rifle held at ease across his lap. Jacob waits._

_Morning breaks across the hills with spectacular light, coating the dewy foliage in sparkles. The earth smells fresh after the night’s rain. The wet, pungent scent and the sound of birds atwitter cover their approach from the rear._

_He posts his Chosen outside the window and slips in, knife held low and at the ready. The kitchen is empty. He steps carefully toward the adjoining mudroom and nudges the door ajar with his boot. It gives, until the hinges resists just enough for him to stop. He pauses then presses again. They creak a little. The door is open enough now that he can see blankets on the floor._

_The Deputy doesn’t look up when he opens the door fully. She’s not asleep, though. He can tell by her breathing, and the antsy way she stirs beneath the sleeping bag. He must stare a moment too long. As he crouches, she turns a little, clearly expecting someone else. A familiar name dies on her lips as he looms over her and presses the tip of his knife under her chin._

_“Don’t even think about making a sound.”_

_Her eyes narrow but she complies. Jacob reaches down and pulls on the zipper, tugging until it gives and he can rip the sleeping bag open. She has a hand on her sidearm. He clicks his tongue and lets the point of his blade draw blood._

_“Hands above the covers, Deputy.”_

_Again, she listens to him. He smiles to himself. So easy, so_ simple _. What he does works- there’s no need for this nonsense. But he’ll placate Joseph. He’ll get some justice for John. He disarms her, sliding the safety and then separating gun and magazine._

_“Should’ve had someone watch the back.” He tells her, just to rub it in. She flips him off. He presses upward until the line of her throat is exposed to him. She’s scowling at him, teeth bared, eyes hot and furious._

_“Up.” They stand together. He places a hand on her shoulder and maneuvers until she’s facing away, more than the tip of his knife pressed against her throat now. He secures her hands behind her back in a zip tie. He doesn’t expect her to be so perfectly compliant, but then she has to go and break the spell with a kick aimed at his shin. He hisses and then tightens the zip tie cruelly, then uses his knife to make her jerk her head up. Her heartbeat has to be rabbit fast, the way she’s breathing._

_“It’s not just you that you have to worry about this time, Deputy." He reminds her. She lets out a shaky breath that is over-loud in the small room._

_He feeds her through the open window into the waiting hands of the Chosen. Together they skulk off back through the woods, leaving the other resistance members behind. It’s too easy for some reason, but he ignores this gut feeling._

Rook fills her time in the beginning with talking. She talks and talks, but the Peggies who tend to her ignore her. Sometimes she promises them things- safety, pardoning. There’s, of course, no guarantee to any of it. She just likes the idea that she might be able to get a rise out of them or a response. Time loses all meaning in her cell, with no sun nor moon nor stars to tell apart the days. This is not like the cages; she’s distinctly aware of that.

So she takes advantage. When they bring her food for the day, she breaks the porcelain cup. The shard she grabs draws blood from her own hand, but it draws even more when she stabs the attendant. She’s not cruel- she goes for the neck. She thinks maybe _keys, weapons_ , but they scream when they go down, wet and horrendous. Blood gets everywhere. Rook might be screaming, too. The guard outside comes in. Somehow, they get the makeshift weapon away from her.

They don’t bring her food for several days. She still has blood on her hands, on her forearms. She passes times picking it away until it’s thick under her fingernails.

When Jacob visits, she’s reminded of a time long ago. It’s been nearly a year since Pratt pressed the blade to his throat and he gloated to her. Since she laughed at him. Since she decided she’d had enough of the psychological horror show he was putting her through. Had it really been so long that she’d avoided him? Now here he was again. Watching her in her cage. She was a circus spectacle. Not for the first time, she wished this could all be over with.

“Do you listen to the radio?” She asks him after he’s glowered at her silently for an uncomfortable amount of time. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t answer. “They’re talking about war, you know. Emergency broadcasts get through on the resistance waves sometimes. I think it’s why no one is coming to help us. They can’t even help themselves.”

He watches her. She doesn’t flinch under his gaze. She’s sweaty and filthy and covered in dried blood, and she smiles at her captor. “You know something? He might be right. I mean, he’s still a dirty son of a bitch who I’d delight in killing, but-” She laughs without humor. “-he might be right.”

He doesn’t speak. She quiets after the admission.

When next they bring her food and water, the containers are plastic.

 

For some time, she had done everything Joseph said she would. He wasn’t a religious man- he likely never would be. Yet there was still a power to her fulfilling Joseph’s word. Now he couldn’t decide if that was the more affirming, or her admitting that Joseph may be right. Jacob didn’t care. He’d do anything for his brothers. His beliefs helped further Joseph’s project. Preparing for the end was smart, no matter what.

He wonders why she would choose now to say something. She hasn’t completely broken- not yet. After that move she’d pulled with the cup, he’d needed to see her. His model soldier. She really didn’t give up. _Something_ is giving in her. The subtle bend of an extremely flexible branch. He wants to truly break her.

He visits the compound that week. John is laid up in Joseph’s cabin, clearly displeased that he only has one pillow. Jacob can tell he’s in pain, but his brother denies all medicine, aside from required antibiotics. They talk for a long while until Joseph returns for the night. He smiles softly at them from the doorway.

“You missed dinner, brother.” Joseph sets a hand on his shoulder and he fights the urge to shake it off.

“Lost track of time.”

“I can see that.” His eyes land on John. There is something hard in his gaze that Jacob dislikes. He knows that John has disappointed him. But he thinks the look runs deeper, a doubtful, hateful thing that lives inside him. Joseph loves John- Jacob knows this. He doesn’t even question the depth of Joseph’s love, but rather, the depth of the hate that lives alongside it. “He needs his rest, you know.”

“Oh, he’ll be fine.” Jacob taps his knuckles against the bedspread. John shifts and then sighs.

“I am feeling tired.” They all three share a look, and Jacob rises.

“There leftovers?”

“Yes, I’ll walk with you.”

They fall in step outside the cabin. The smell of wood smoke is in the air, making Jacob breathe in deeply. Joseph is quiet as they walk, though Jacob feels like his brother is biding his time, searching for what to say. Joseph has that way about him- he thinks before he speaks. They make their way to a larger community cabin, where a few straggling project members are cleaning up and chattering quietly. One of them breaks off and goes about making Jacob a plate- either he was _sorely_ missed or Joseph prepared them ahead of time.

“How go your trials?” Joseph asks.

Jacob lifts a shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Serum needs work, for the Judges.”

“And the others?”

“They can’t all be strong.”

“Mm.” They sit together while Jacob eats. Still his brother mulls over his words, staring dazedly at the food. When he finally works it out, it’s not what Jacob’s expecting.

“Did things proceed as expected, with Faith? I have not heard word of the Deputy in weeks.” Joseph’s eyes peek over the rims of his glasses. He looks very tired, and very old. The years haven’t been kind to any of them, Jacob is more than aware. Somewhere in that face, there’s still his younger brother, afraid and looking for guidance. Now, too, however, there is a man with big plans. An adult he can’t get a read on. Jacob chews contemplatively, tasting the lie.

“About as well as it could go. Y’should ask Faith, ain’t the Deputy supposed to be there?”

“She hasn’t reported anything to me.” Joseph rolls his wrist then idly begins cracking his knuckles. He stares over Jacob’s shoulder. “I thought, perhaps…”

“It worked?” Jacob snorts.

“One would hope.” There’s an edge to his voice.

“Sure. Just figured it would take more than that."

“She may be strong, Jacob but she’s still a sinner.”

He flicks his eyes up to Joseph and swallow. “Why do you think she spared John?”

His brother blinks. “Pardon?”

“My training. That was my doing.” He’d made sure she wouldn’t hurt any of them. After the last simulation, she had gone on a rampage. She avoided him, and turned the countryside red. He’d worried he hadn’t had enough time with her to make the principals _stick_. When they found John, against that tree, wound packed and knife still buried in him, he had felt such fire, such pride. It was working. The others- the militia members before her- they went mad, or didn’t comply well enough. There was always something. But Jacob had finally perfected it- in her. “Did you ever think you haven’t heard of her fucking around out there because of _me_?” He’s indignant, and does little to hide it from showing in his voice.

Joseph exhales, a tiny, surprised noise. “Brother, I value what you contribute to the project, you know this. She spent far too long in the Henbane, however. We had to make her see. You know the doubtful are always eased by the Bliss.”

He grinds his teeth and breaths out through his nose. He can’t honestly voice that he finds addling project members with drugs a waste of manpower, and of resources. And he can’t say that he’s doubtful the ever-strong Deputy would succumb to the Bliss so he shuts his mouth, pulls a Joseph and thinks. Mostly of the Deputy, in his bunker, biding her time. Still refusing to break. “Right.” He mutters, and viciously stabs his food. They fall into a silence without the expectation of words.

 

_Jacob is breathing heavily. In itself it’s an accomplishment, to get him this worked up- never mind his two Chosen in a heap on the ground. He finally got the upper hand, pistol whipping her so hard she’d gone toppling over. It’s his mistake- he’d sheathed his knife during the walk, instead keeping her going with his pistol at her back. Her tied hands had, at some point, found the handle and slipped it free._

_One Chosen is lying face up, nose a caved, bloody mess where she’d driven her foot in over and over again. The other is crumpled over, blood messy in the dirt beneath him. Jacob reaches down and tugs his knife free, wiping it clean on the man’s pants. Still catching his breath, he returns the knife to its sheath and turns his gaze on the Deputy. She’s sitting on the forest floor, blinking up at him blearily. Blood is running down her neck._

_“That,” he huffs. “-was stupid.”_

_Faith is fairly startled when he returns to the waiting car with an unconscious Deputy and no Chosen. “What happened?” She presses a hand to her chest._

_It had happened fast, and he hadn’t had any intention to really shoot her. She’d stopped short and ducked, tripping him. Before any of them could react, she’d stabbed the first Chosen and then gone barreling into the next, knocking him backwards. She’d kicked him while he was down, making sure it was done with brutal efficiency. Jacob had watched, taken aback, and then tackled her. She’d fought well, even with her hands bound. She wouldn’t go down until he hit her._

_To think, his own Chosen were that weak._

_“Doesn’t matter now.” He passes her through the door, and Faith murmurs and presses her dress against the gash on the Deputy’s head._

The door opens so softly one could miss it, where they not in tune with every small sound in an otherwise quiet world. She watches a shape slip in, closing the door with shaking hands.

“You’ll get in trouble.”

Staci jumps.

“Sorry, I got used to it being dark.” She’s scared a few Peggies this way, too.

He turns on the lamp, so they can both see. His face is bruised and his hair is greasy, as it has been any time she’s seen him. The only difference, now, is his lack of uniform- he’s wearing a threadbare grey shirt and ill-fitting khakis.

“Fitting in with the locals?”

He watches her. Just- looks. She closes her eyes, because she’s tired of being observed. After another moment, he clears his throat.

“He sent me in here.”

“To do what?” She watches the dark starbursts inside of her eyelids, and squeezes her good hand in the sheets. The scab there tugs and stings.

“Talk.” Staci’s voice is so quiet. He used to be _boisterous_. He was the kind of man she hated- loud, cocky, and a little scary if she was being honest. It’s not that he ever did anything untoward- he was just so much, too often, and an ass to boot. She thinks about them now- two prisoners, and who held up? If she were in his position, Jacob Seed’s prisoner from the start would she be who she is now, today? Rook, her nickname- that was all Staci. Rookie was denigrating but she’d always hated her own name. There was a power in repurposing his taunt. Rook, they called her, until she’d signed her name onto her timecard one week and Nancy had laughed.

“Forgot that was you, sweetheart.” She’d said when she’d swept it up. Rook had grinned, too.

“Talk about what?” Her voice is soft, and she opens her eyes. He’s looking down at his hands now, curled around the bedframe. His knuckles are bruised as well. How much of the black and blue on his body is she responsible for?

“He didn’t tell me." Pratt looks distinctly worried by this, fidgeting and looking around like he’s being watched. Hell, they might be. Rook sighs.

“He loves his games.” Her counterpart is silent. Once, he’d heard him say a lot of colorful things about the Seeds. Now he looks like he swallowed a lemon.

The silence between them is a ravine, inaccessible, insurmountable. She feels like she’s looking at him from very far away. He’s an injured animal on the far ledge who she can’t save. The effort would kill them both, probably. “Hey,” She murmurs, and he looks at her again. Around his neck there’s a hemp cord, and the symbol of Eden’s Gate hands from it. “I’m sorry.”

He jerks his head back, as if she’s slapped him. He still has that sour, disbelieving look on his face. She knows why Jacob did this. One day, she’ll make him pay. Right now, she swallows her pride, feels the full depth and breadth of her guilt.

“I’m sorry I left you here.” She sits up as far as the restraints will let her. “I’m sorry for what he’s done to you, Pratt. For what I’ve done to you.”

His gaze drops again. “I wanted you to get out.” She watches him squeeze the bedframe, knuckles blotching white and purple. His breath is loud and shaking. “I knew I had to help you, that it was the right thing to do.” He says it like the very thought that it was right was monumental, difficult.

She owes him. She owes so many people. But she owes him, big time. Everyone had paid a price, some she had lost forever. She was indebted to many people. But here he was- her biggest failure. He did for her what she’s incapable of doing in return.

“I’ll get you out Pratt. I’ll save you. I swear that I will.”

His breathing is hard and rabbit-fast, terrified. She thinks he might yell at her, might at least say anything at all, but he turns to the door and dashes out. The door slams, loud, without the finesse of his entrance.

She lays back against the mattress, and covers her eyes with her arm, to block out the light.


	6. Interlude I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoaaaa, hey there! Yep, it's me, back after five months! So for one: super sorry! For two: I have been working like crazy on this story the whole time I've been gone. Um, I know I said last chapter I'd stop increasing the chapter amount... yeah... sorry about _that_ as well, but I hope you'll appreciate the extra story (I have approximately 3-4 more of those chapters written/drafted!) I won't bore you all with the particulars of what my hang-ups were in getting this to you, but just know I am still working on this story and have stuff planned for it. Hopefully by the end it'll all make sense. Thanks to everyone who's hung on this long and left me lovely comments, I appreciate and read them all! This chapter's a little shorter, and a bit of a flashback to fully explain some things, but...okay, without further adieu, here you go!

Jacob reaches across the center console and dials the radio off Project airwaves. The driver pays him little attention- only a curious glance that flits away as soon as Jacob looks at him. The Deputy is draped across Faith’s lap and drifting in and out of consciousness. Faith has been idly running a hand through her hair, trying to keep her awake.

“You hit her too hard.”

“Eh, hard enough.” He argues. Still, Faith’s normally pristine white dress is stained with copious amounts of blood.

_Sweet Home Alabama_ trickles through the speakers. His sister shoots him a look, then nods at the driver. Jacob shrugs.

“He’s a Chosen ain’t he? Besides, I’m listening for news.”

After the Militia had reclaimed the airwaves, they’d been hard-pressed to wrestle them back. During their attempts to do so, Jacob had discovered that emergency broadcasts came through. Sometimes they held valuable information so Joseph had conceded the point. Militia radio gave them an edge, and Jacob had to admit, it was nice not to have to listen to the same twelve choir songs over and over.

Faith brushes the hair out of the Deputy’s face. Her eyebrows are furrowed even in rest. Jacob has a sudden, painful flashback. It was his second tour, and his unit was deep in enemy territory. Enemy as a term felt very arbitrary- most of what they did amounted to aimless walking, spending countless days under the cruel hands of biting wind and sand. They also bullshitted, a lot. There was a new guy in the unit, young and dumb. Hell, they all were, but he was fresh. When Jacob was on watch and the other men slept, all the layers fell away. That young buck was the only one who didn’t look terrified enough to piss his pants. Not at first, anyway. Eventually he built up the same tolerance to sleep as the other men- which is to say, he got very little, and looked like a crying newborn baby when he did. No one said anything, of course, about the men who had nightmares, about the ones who talked in their sleep. More painful now comes the memory of those last few nights with Miller. There’d been a kind of peace on the man’s face when Jacob watched him sleep. It’d been so long since he’d seen it.

“Perhaps you’d benefit from the Bliss too, brother.” Faith’s voice breaks through the memory. Jacob cuts his eyes at her.

“Don’t need it. I’m loyal to the Project already.”

“But do you see? The Bliss isn’t some magical force to turn Sinners into Believers. It is a tool to help the woefully misguided set aside their reservations. It doesn’t build loyalty… but upon loyalty that already exists. Sometimes I wonder, well-” She trails off as Jacob continues to glare at her, then she sighs. It sounds almost fond. “No matter. You’re right, Jacob. You are loyal to the cause.” Still her hand pets at the Deputy’s head. Something crawls up his spine, the uncomfortable awareness of a trap.

“She’ll be stronger for it.”

“…That’s not for you to decide.” He grits this out firmly, brooking no debate.

“Isn’t it? Strength of the spirit is not equal to strength of the body.” Her eyes drift down to the Deputy. “And I can decide that. But I see why you chose her for your trials. She’s like you- stubborn. And she perseveres. She’s plenty strong for your purposes, Jacob. She’s even loyal.”

He snorts. “To the wrong side.”

“Exactly. You don’t… _need_ the Bliss because you _understand_ the Father. You realize how right he is, how right the Voice is.” Her tone is like ice, and her eyes are steely. Something about her words settles over him- Jacob does little to hide that he doesn’t believe. He knows, too, that there has to be doubt in her. He can still remember when Joseph trained her. It took an exceptional amount of Bliss. If anything, Jacob respects her resilience. She’s living proof that the Bliss doesn’t always go awry. As much as it begrudges him to admit it, she has strength. She knows, at least somewhat, what she’s doing.

“Right.” He concedes. He observes her carefully, and withholds any further statement that may bait her.

“But _she_ needs that little nudge.” For emphasis, Faith shakes the Deputy’s head. A groan floats up between them. “You get that, don’t you? But don’t worry. I know you need her in one piece. We all do. I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that.”

Jacob says nothing. She’s goading him, and he’s trying not to bite. Sometimes he wonders what she’s playing at. John and Faith are so much like the Project followers- beholden to Joseph, vying for his attention. True believers. What does Christianity say- God before family? Jacob’s got it backwards by all accounts. Not Faith. Can they work together if their priorities are this much at odds?

Maybe the Deputy isn’t the only one who’s not loyal to the right thing. Although Jacob wouldn’t say it’s _him_ in the wrong.

“Of course, if everything goes accordingly, there’ll be no need for your games anymore.”

He leans across the narrow space. The Deputy makes a noise, something like a whine, as he edges into Faith’s space and she gets squished between them.

“I see through you.” He says it low, so that between their proximity and the music the driver won’t be able to hear them. “Under all this bluster. Words mean little, Faith, in the grand scheme of what we’re doing. Actions speak louder. You know what I’m saying, don’t you?” _What’s a Marshal to the Deputy? What’s an Angel to the Father, to the Voice?_

Her hands clench possessively. Oh, how alike they all are, regardless of blood. They all want the same thing, they just have very different ideas of how to get it. He forgets himself, momentarily, lets his full hand show with a smug smile. “You know it won’t work on her.”

“I’ve never known it to fail.” Faith rebuts. It’s patently untrue- how many Angels does she have? Though Jacob doubts she counts those as failures. However… the Deputy _is_ curiously resistant to the Bliss. She’s run around in fields of the stuff, been shot with concentrated doses several times. It wears off too quickly.

That’s why Faith suggested the Baptism. Different, from John’s, though the initial plan to involve him had promised success for them both. The Bliss is the key. And she has a brand new strain, especially reserved for their favored troublemaker. But now he sees the seed of doubt sewn by his words, blooming as a bright fear in her eyes. What will Joseph say if she follows John in failure? Worse yet, what will he do?

They lapse into a stony silence, broken only by the soft music from the radio and the Deputy’s tossing and turning. The car veers onto a dirt road, jolting their passenger. She murmurs and lashes out, her arms straining in their bonds. Jacob turns a bored eye on her.

Her voice is slurred. “Where’re… taking me?” Faith dabs at the head wound again and the other woman flinches. “ _Owww_ …”

“To the river, dear.” Faith soothes. “We’ll get you all cleaned up.” Jacob can hear the double meaning. So, too, can the Deputy apparently, because she blearily blinks open her eyes and then begins to struggle in earnest. Her wrists are trapped behind her, and her knees are folded awkwardly sitting in the center of the small vehicle. She kicks him in her straining, then goes strangely still, breathing heavily. She must’ve gotten tired. Her eyes are still and open, glazed, and she lets them drift to him.

“Please don’t. I’ll be good.” Jacob doesn’t let his surprise show. This isn’t the Deputy he knows. It’s probably a ploy, or desperation. Maybe she’s just that confused- maybe he _did_ hit her too hard.

“Our hands are tied, Deputy. You had your chance to come peacefully.” Though he says them, the words don’t feel like his own. Her eyes are dark and confused. She’s so used to leadership and sincerity from him. Not for the last time, he questions his place in this little plan. Faith didn’t need his manpower, but Joseph had insisted that in John’s absence, Jacob should take his place.

“No, I-” She starts, but her mouth hangs open on the vowel. Something like agony runs across her face, and she sags as a deadweight across his lap.

Thinking she’s passed back out, he turns his attention elsewhere. It’s then that he realizes the radio is playing a familiar tune, and it’s also then that the Deputy comes back to life. Her struggle this time is full body, vigorous. She rolls forward, their legs tangling in the foot well. He watches with a kind of awe as she lets out a grunt and the zip ties give way with a dull pop. Her wrists start bleeding, and part of the plastic hits him wetly in the face. Faith seems shaken into inaction. The Deputy pushes herself up, smearing more blood on the fabric interior. Her hair is wild. Her eyes are wilder.

“Turn off the radio.” He tells the Chosen. Jacob stays very still. This wasn’t exactly a foreseen result of his trials. He doesn’t need to provoke her and find out if anything else isn’t according to plan. And yet…

Like the well-trained predator that she is, she immediately hones in on the driver reaching for the knob. Self-preservation flies out the window, replaced by fascination - now Jacob looks on, rapt with attention. This is just another chance to observe his experiment in action, with a set of new and wild variables. It's not what he needs, but it’ll do. He’s enthralled by the pure, feral instinct driving her.

“What is she doing, Jacob?” Faith asks. Simple words, spoken quietly, though for all her care they have the approximate effect of a nuclear bomb.

All hell breaks loose.

 

_There’s a sense of the nightmare being_ real _this time. Crimson bleeding into maroon as she runs, her lungs burning, stinging as she exerts herself. Rook can feel wetness under her nails, in her mouth, on her face. It’s just the same song and dance, no new terror. This new feeling… is it excitement, pounding in her chest? The copper tang of blood sends a frisson of hunger singing through her system, beyond her stomach and into her brain. Something instinctual in her wants to sing and to bite. Oh, right._

She’s _the wolf._

 

Jacob extricates himself from the car. Smoke is pouring out from under the hood. Though it smells acrid, he thinks the vehicle might still run. And if he didn’t have to attend to the situation at hand, he’d already be at work trying to salvage their ride. As it is, he’s banged up and sore, and fairly pissed off as he swoops over a nearly-rabid Deputy and _yanks_.

She’s strangling the life out of the Chosen on the ground. The ground is torn up, dirt mounded, long grooves dragged through the loose mulch by desperate hands. They’re a yard from the car, covered in soil and sweat and she sounds like a wild animal. He must have hit his head- he finds himself slightly stumbling when she resists his grab. Jacob draws to a stop, watches as he tries to regain his balance. The Chosen’s nails drag across her hands and she snarls. Shaking his head to clear it proves largely unsuccessful. His eyes are drawn to the kicking of the man’s legs, and then to the flex of the Deputy’s forearms. Pale, bloody hands stands out against the man’s bright red face. For some reason, Jacob can’t look away from the straining muscles of her arms.

He finally manages to kick himself into gear when the Chosen all but stops struggling, merely twitching weakly. This is when he tugs her away with all his strength, to no avail. If anything, she grips tighter. Jacob grits his teeth and grabs for her hair. She very nearly growls as he pulls her away, barely seeming to notice his hold on her has caused her head wound to reopen.

“Well, _I_ didn’t really wanna do that.” He looks down at her victim, who’s lying there dazed and barely alive. His breaths sound noisy, like a broken whistle. Jacob slips his arms around her arms, looping though her elbows and locking them. She struggles halfheartedly, and he can feel her hands still wildly jerking near his thighs.

“Stop.” He orders, not even bothering to raise his voice. In his arms she goes still, and he can hear her breathing rapidly. “You did well, now stop.”

Faith’s voice startles him. “My, my brother. What a problem you’ve created.”

“An asset.” Heat pushes up across his cheeks, his nose, even comes out in his words. The Deputy squirms, reacting to his tone “Only _problem_ we have are these weakling Chosen.” He mutters a few unkinder words under his breath.

“She choked him out. You could hardly control her.” Her eyes are alive, and curious. Faith does love manipulation, doesn’t she?  Jacob certainly prefers his methods to hers, and feels a mix of pride and disgust at her open… _appreciation_ of his work. “You’ve got her moderately well-trained.”

The Deputy makes this _noise_ \- like a wolf pup, inquisitive and downtrodden. As if she just pissed on the carpet and can’t tell if she crossed the line. Jacob huffs. “You’re fine.” He tells her absently. She quiets again.

“Do you coddle all your Judges this way?”

He looks up at Faith. She’s so good at this- her face is impassive, with wide, innocent eyes.

“She’s not a Judge.” His voice rises on the tail-end of this statement.

“Isn’t she?”

No matter what he answers, he’ll be lying. The Deputy is no wild animal. He hasn’t handpicked her above all others in the pack- he’d had choices before her, where it concerned getting to Eli. She just ended up being far stronger than anticipated, and it lit something in him. A desire to see how far he could push her, push her strength.

He _is_ coddling her.

“I’m done with this. I’ve played my part. You’re close enough to the river now, you can radio your men to help the rest of the way. We both know you don’t want me there, let alone need me.”

Faith smiles at him. In the bright future Joseph prophesies for them, she will have smile lines, two deep parenthesis to highlight that lying mouth. Her fingers curl in the fabric of her dress, and there’s a veritable hop in her step as she rounds the car.

“Whatever you say!” She sing-songs. It’s not true, of course. He’s supposed to help her the whole way. But he’s done.

It’s then that he realizes how heavily the Deputy is leaning on him. She’s breathing deep and hard, otherwise obediently still. He loosens his hold; she does not fight nor flee, but she does stumble, forcing him to catch her.

“Easy.” With his hands on her shoulders, he guides her back to the vehicle. She bends at the knee when he pushes her inside. She’s much more pliant than the last time he’d slipped her into this car. He snaps his fingers and she looks at him. The circles underneath her eyes are nearly as dark as her pupils. They dilate when he reaches out and she doesn’t move away. Blood wets his fingertips when he presses against the back of her head. Her breath hitches, though her only other reaction is to blink slowly at him, seeming nearly hypnotized.

“Hands out.” He commands, mouth curiously dry.

Between the lingering effects of the music and the head wound, she manages to look briefly conflicted before limply offering her wrists. He secures them with another zip tie, which starts up a fresh wave of blood. It occurs to him that he could belt her wrists instead, but then Faith’s head pops over the other side of the car. She throws him a thousand-watt smile.

“Okay, Jake. Your job here is done.”

His nearly-permanent scowl deepens at the nickname. “Just make sure she gets back to Joseph in one piece.”

“Sure. Back to _Joseph_.” She brushes her hair out of her face, leaving a rusty smear of blood on her forehead. Faith leans against the car, all her weight on her forearms. “Oh, and do me a favor? Make sure your dog didn’t kill my Chosen, before you go.”


End file.
